As more and more information is communicated through informal channels such as blogs and wikis, the importance of incorporating those electronic documents into a formal life cycle strategy also increases. An area of particular vulnerability is the issue of knowledge retention as the baby boomer generation moves into retirement...Posted August 03, 2009

Online learning can earn companies a positive return on investment (ROI), and it can do that quickly. Smart companies provide employees with learning opportunities to keep skills and knowledge razor-sharp so employees produce quality work...Posted July 03, 2009

On the most basic level, we need to take a step back and focus on the fundamental question: Why was the Department of Homeland Security created? It was not created merely to bring together different agencies under a single tent. It was created to enable these agencies to secure the homeland through joint, coordinated action. Our challenge is to realize that goal to the greatest extent possible. —Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to the Senate Subcommittee on Homeland Security, April 20, 2005...Posted June 01, 2009

Social networking software gives users the ability to create individual profiles that foster interaction among people based on their interests, expertise or work activities. First made available on consumer-oriented sites such as Facebook, social networking is beginning to find a solid niche in the business world...Posted June 01, 2009

How many times have you searched the Web and received a laundry list of 34,000 hits? Have you ever looked beyond the first page or two of search results? Probably not. Much like a search on the public Web, sifting through the vast amounts of unstructured data in your enterprise content management (ECM) system can be an overwhelming and fruitless process.Most company data is unstructured, and much of it often resides in enterprise content management systems. If it is leveraged properly, this valuable information can help your company improve customer satisfaction, gain competitive advantage, make better decisions and improve the overall productivity of knowledge and other workers. But the sheer volume of data housed in these repositories can render the information useless if your company doesn't have the tools to not only access this information, but also to analyze and extract relevant information...Posted June 01, 2009

In general, text analysis refers to the process of extracting interesting and non-trivial information and knowledge from unstructured text. Text analysis differs from traditional search in that, whereas search requires a user to know what he or she is looking for, text analysis attempts to discover information in a pattern that is not known beforehand (through the use of advanced techniques such as pattern recognition, natural language processing, machine learning and so on). By focusing on patterns and characteristics, text analysis can produce better search results and deeper data analysis, thereby providing quick retrieval of information that otherwise would remain hidden.Text analysis is particularly interesting in areas where users must discover new information, such as in criminal investigations, legal discovery and when performing due-diligence investigations. Such investigations require 100% recall; i.e., users cannot afford to miss any relevant information....Posted June 01, 2009

Scads of words have been written about "enterprise search," "knowledge management," "information access," etc. In fact, I am responsible for a scad or two myself.And, of course, it makes sense: When 90% of the information your company possesses is in the form of unstructured text files and email, plus more-or-less formal formats (contracts, PowerPoints, legal documents and marketing material, etc.), it's painfully obvious that tools to access that content will emerge as key components of the knowledge-worker toolset. But what HASN'T been covered quite as well are the text-mining and analytic tools that exist to find content—and the many relationships between content objects—that are not yet part of the average, daily knowledge worker's regimen.The way it's often been put is this:SEARCH is useful when you know basically what it is you're looking for. A specific email... a contract for a specific deal...Posted June 01, 2009

While Web content management (WCM) has been around for more than 10 years, enterprises only now seem to be getting serious about implementing WCM that can solve business problems, as opposed to solving IT problems...Posted May 01, 2009